Disbursement

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Panel data

Economics

Computer science

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The Journal of Politics

This article uses detailed, transaction-level data on candidate disbursements and panel survey data to estimate the effect of candidate spending. Transaction-level data allow me to isolate only spending that is being used on messages to voters, while panel survey data enable me to control for unobserved candidate characteristics. I find that spending on messages to voters has a statistically significant effect on voter support for candidates. Spending is especially effective in changing the composition of voters, instead of convincing potential voters to switch their vote. Not all voters are equally affected by spending; low-information voters, members of a political party and the economically dissatisfied respond strongly to candidate spending. Finally, I provide evidence that the most commonly used measure of candidate spending overestimates the amount of money that candidates use on their own campaigns, and regressions using this measure are less likely to find a statistically significant effect of spending.

Does Campaign Spending Affect Election Outcomes? New Evidence from Transaction-Level Disbursement Data